


Smile for Me

by dwarvenkin



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Alien butt probe mention, Angst, Angst and Humor, Angst with a Happy Ending, Deacon - Freeform, Deacon/Sole Survivor - Freeform, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gore, I'm Serious, Love me some, Smoothes, Sole Survivor, This makes me sound like I'm Supreme Edgelord, kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 12:02:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6194452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dwarvenkin/pseuds/dwarvenkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Teddy Mcconnell finds herself in a tough spot when three thugs jump her near Bunker Hill. Like many times before, she smiles and tries to talk her way out of it, but things turn sour once a knife is shoved in her mouth. Luckily, she has Deacon at her side during her recovery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smile for Me

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! While this one-shot isn't necessarily dark, I'd like to point out a few triggers for the safety of some readers. There is swearing, knives, graphic violence and gore, PDA, and mention of slavery. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this and have a great day. :)

When Slasher pulled out his knife and gripped it tight by the handle, Teddy’s eyes widened to the size of eggs. _Oh shit. Ohshitohshitohshitohshitohshit,_ she thought. 

To show that she had no weapons of her own, she slipped her hands out of her pockets and waved them to the three huge thugs surrounding her. She gave out a nervous laugh. “Hey. Whoa now. What’cha got there, big guy? Mr. Slasher… Sir. How ‘bout we put that big scary knife back in your pocket, huh? Pointy objects make me nervous. Sticks, glass… Hell, even pencils. I swear to you. But, see, metal… Swords, knives. That _especially_ makes me nervous.”

To her left, a man built like a tree took a step forward. He had arms as thick as trunks with a barrel chest spilling from his leather harness. The red, angry scar across his face rippled when he pulled his lips apart and snarled. Teddy pointed a shaking finger at him.

“Hey! NO guard dogs! Do you see Dogmeat with me? No? Because he’s not…” A smile twisted Slasher’s face into something grotesque. His thin, cracked lips revealed yellow broken teeth. “I mean he is! Dogmeat is here! How could I forget about him? I’m not alone. Here. With you. I’m not stupid. I could be forgetful sometimes, yeah. Leave a sleeping bag at a settlement or maybe forget an extra round of ammo but that was only _once_ and I never did it again because the hoard of ferrel ghouls taught me _that_ lesson!”

“Shut. Up.”

“Okay. Yup. Good idea.” Teddy pantomimed zipping her lips and throwing away the key.

Suddenly, Mcconnell’s stomach wobbled in her throat as her feet lifted from the ground. Huge, stocky arms appeared from under her arms, and she felt on the back of her neck a harsh breath that smelled like sewer water. She kicked her feet in the air and tried to wiggle herself free. Spit flew from her mouth as she growled to wretch herself from the nelson hold, but then she gasped and fell limp. Her shoulders groaned in protest when the guy behind her squeezed.

Slasher’s face came into full view. Round, blue eyes stared back at her. He had stringy gray hair that fell past his shoulders, silver mutton chops along his jaw, and a chunk of his nose was missing. Teddy balled up her fists and glared at him.

“Not smiling now, are you, _girl?_ ”

She narrowed her eyes. “You say that like it’s an insult.”

Slasher brought the knife between them and twirled it between his fingers. The high sun caught the shine of the metal and blinded her until she saw white dots swimming in her vision.

“You owe me a minion, Mcconnell,” Slasher said.

“I don’t owe you–”

 _Shit,_ she meant to say. When the brute behind her tightened his hold, the word became a hiss. Teddy twisted from the knife, just enough so the glare barely reached her eyes. From behind the raider’s bare shoulder, she spotted a tiny dot in the distance, hopping from one roof to the other. Her eyes darted back to Slasher, then she smiled.

“As I was saying, I don’t owe you shit. You were treating that boy like a slave. Did you even now his name? Or did you make one up? No, no, no! Don’t say anything. Lemme guess. Slasher Jr? No, you would never give a slave that wonderful name of yours. Super original too. Let’s go with Eduardo. Nah, that’s too hard to remember, huh? Oh! I know! I know!” She stuck out her neck as far as she could until she could smell the alcohol on Slasher’s breath. Her grin widened until it hurt. “You named him Zero. He was nothing, wasn’t he? Live bait at a gun range. Someone to clean the blood and shit off your clothes. Ahhh, I got it, didn’t I? I–”

Slasher crushed her chin into his thick hand until her skin bruised. “You like to joke, girl. You like to smile. Well, why don’t we make it permanent?”

Teddy’s cry turned into a gurgle when he slipped the tip of his knife between her teeth and slashed at the corners of her mouth. Blood splashed at the lapels of her pea coat. It spilled between his fingers until they turned red. In the cold December air, the wounds were smoking. “Attack,” she croaked out around the clots of blood and spit. Pain washed over her. When the man behind her let go, she gave a grunt and fell face-first into the pavement.

Voices were clouded and her vision blurred, but Mcconnell could make out a growl of a dog and a hazy outline of a giant man going down with a thud. She felt a tiny earthquake from behind her as a second thug fell. From a few feet away, she heard jaws snap and blood bubble like the sound of someone gurgling water, and then, finally, the third thug was dead.

Hot tears welled up and leaked out of her big wet eyes. They slipped across her nose and dripped onto the gritty pavement beneath her. A wind brushed past her, but Teddy didn’t know if she was shivering from the cold or from fear.

The last thing she heard when she closed her eyes was someone calling out her name.

–

_Everyone says dying was peaceful. Most of those people were full of shit._

Someone moved beside her. “Okay, numero uno, you’re not dying. Numero dous, who are you talking to? If it’s the aliens again, tell them my ass is still sore from last time.”

Teddy’s eyes flew open at the sound of his voice, but when she tried to face him, a searing pain made her head pound and her fingers clench. She swallowed the vomit that threatened to rise from her throat and blinked away the tears. Above her was a dusty cloth tarp with holes fringing at the edges. Through them stars were shining bright; she could just make out the moon as well. A sleeping mat covered her, she noticed when she looked down her front, and her shoes and coat were piled with care in the corner of the makeshift tent. She could just make out the black stains on her clothes.

It was all coming back to her – the thugs, the fight… The scars.

As soon as she raised her hand to her mouth, Deacon caught her wrist and tsked. “Wouldn’t do that if I were you. You lost a lot of blood there, Ramble.”

“So… You got my signal?” she muttered. Pieces of gauze were taped to each side of her face. She pretended to lock her lips with a key and threw it over her shoulder.

“‘Course I did. Came running as soon as I saw it and didn’t start shooting until Dogmeat attacked, just like you said, boss. That sniper was some heavy duty shit.” He took a deep breath and sighed. “Though I guess we gotta give it back to the Maccready before he notices it missing.”

“And Dogmeat? He’s okay?”

“Yeah, made out fine. He waited behind the building like a good dog. You know, I’m starting to think he’s smarter than he lets on. He may sniff his own crap and lick himself, but… I mean he’s the one who took your boots off. Hand to god I saw it with my own eyes. He’s out, guarding the tent,” he added when Teddy looked around for her dog.

She swallowed hard. Her throat was dry and her tongue felt too big for her mouth. “Hey, Deacon?”

“Hm?”

“How bad is it? And _don’t lie._ ”

For a while, he said nothing. They both sat in silence. All Teddy could hear was the chirping of crickets outside and Dogmeat panting and licking his lips. Occasionally, a cool wind swept by, whistling through the holes of the tarp and giving the tent a cautious sway.

Deacon cleared his throat. “It’s gonna leave one nasty scar, boss. Ah, well, two… Look, no one survives the Commonwealth without a few scars of their own. Or at least the ones who go out there and do shit that matters.” He grabbed the edge of his white t-shirt and pulled it up until he revealed a long thin scar. It was stark white against his skin and ran across his ribs, down to his naval. “Remember when I told you about the Deathclaws? Do you really believe people like them would’ve let me go quietly? I thought I was doing the smart thing, leaving in the middle of the night, but I wasn’t always this stealthy. Luckily, I only got away with this and a dislocated shoulder. It could have been a lot worse, knowing what they did to synths. A caravan doctor found me and patched me right up.”

Gently, Teddy stretched out her hand, skimmed the flat of her thumb across the scar, and felt a rise from the rest of his skin. She wondered if he was telling the truth, or if this was another lesson of his.

_It feels real enough… I trust him._

Deacon took her hand away, which caused a blush to creep up her neck, and tugged his shirt back down.

When he spoke again, it was barely a whisper. “All I saying is… What you did took guts. Dez won’t be too happy hearing you gave a human a synth care package, but fuck that. You gotta have some pretty big cojones to disobey her orders to help someone who wasn’t a synth. Look, the Railroad may refuse to believe this but we gotta look out for everyone – synth, human, ghoul, super mutant even. If we start excluding people from help, what makes us any better than the Brotherhood?”

Before Deacon could slide his hand from hers, Teddy held fast, weaving her fingers through his. The scars on her cheeks started to pound. They spread pain down her neck and into the sore muscles of her shoulders. Her eyelids felt heavy, drifting down every so often until they were shut completely. She heard the swish of clothes against grass, then, suddenly, something solid positioned itself under her head.

“Thank you,” she mumbled, falling asleep to the sound of Deacon’s heartbeat.

–

Mcconnell woke up once during her recovery. Voices had risen between Dez and Deacon, ending with Carrington shouting at both to take their argument away from his patient.

“You deliberately disobeyed an order, Deacon,” the leader of the Railroad said. If Teddy had been standing there instead of lying in the corner on a makeshift hospital bed, she would have seen Desdemona cross an arm over her middle and take a long drag from her cigarette.

Deacon scoffed. “What? So now we’re the Brotherhood? That kid needed our help.”

“And so do the hundreds of synths trying to free themselves,” she said, bristling.

“What difference does it make, Dez? Synth, human, they all need our help. You’ve seen the Commonwealth and the shit that goes down. I’ve seen the Capital Wasteland and let me tell you, it’s no daisy pickin’ walk in the park. People need someone to rely on out there, so why can’t that be the Railroad?”

“The Railroad,” Dex emphasized,” is for the liberation of synths. The humans will just have to wait. We have more pressing matters than helping the people who put synths in their position in the first place.”

“Listen to yourself! You-”

Something metal crashed to the ground with a ring, making the two voices fall silent.

“Unless you would like to cause Ms. Mcconnell here to go under intense stress,” Carrington said from beside her bed, “I suggest you take this shitstorm upstairs.”

At first, everything was still. No one made a move or a sound. Then, there was a rustle of jackets and bags being thrown on. Two pairs of feet stomped out, growing softer as they ascended the stone staircase. Suddenly, Teddy felt a prick on her arm, sending her back to a dreamless sleep.

–

Outside, the world was black and still, save for the birds chirping from the dry, dead trees behind her house in Sanctuary. Through the missing panels of her bathroom wall, there were oil lanterns flickering brightly, where shadows shifted in and out of the lamplight. Strong stomped passed, and Teddy could hear the metallic click of Nick’s wrist as he adjusted it with his screwdriver. A few newcomers yawned loudly, crunching dead leaves beneath their boots.

She looked in the shattered mirror before her and fingered the jagged Chelsea grin scar. It was still a swollen angry red; her chin had turned black and blue from a bruise that ran under her jaw as well.

_At least I’ll always be smiling now. Just like he said._

If anything, the realization made Teddy’s frown deepen and her bloodshot eyes water. Some tears spilled over before she could stop them with the back of her hand, but nonetheless, she gently dabbed at her cheeks with the edge of her coat sleeve. Clearing her throat, she straightened up and held her shoulders back with dignity.

“Okay. It’s not that bad. If anything, it makes me look intimidating. ‘My name is Ruby Thorne. Entertainer by day, rough-and-tough mercenary by night. I dabble with chems on the side. Made me go crazy once. That’s how I got these scars. I could hit a bullseye from ten yards away with just a pocket knife.’ Oh god that sounds so stupid. Ruby Thorne? Come on Teddy, you’re better than that.” With the tip of her tongue, she prodded at the sides of her mouth. The holes from her stitches were still there, tiny and shallow, but from the inside, her scars felt different. Lumpy, slimy, like a rocky riverbed. “Ugh. That’s disgusting.”

The front door opened and closed; someone noisily shivered and shuffled their feet down the hall. Appearing in the doorway, Deacon brushed a light dusting of snow off his pompadour wig and denim jacket. She had hardly noticed the tiny white specs drifting through the holes of her walls, making puddles in the corners of the room.

“Uhhh, you know,” he started while sliding his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose, “I’m all for special time in the bathroom, but this is getting kinda out of hand, boss.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just got in here. To clean. Look at all this mess. Leaves! Everywhere! What’s these stains? I don’t even know. That could be blood. Or… Oh god it might be blood… And look over there – bloatfly mucus? Guts? Do they even have guts? Who knows how many critters got their nasty little legs on everything.”

“How do you lie so much without burning a hole through your pants?” He took Teddy’s shoulders in his hands, turned her so that she could look outside, and pointed. “The super awesome thing about holes is that you can see through them from inside and out. Neat, huh?”

When she didn’t answer, Deacon’s laugh brushed against her neck and made her stomach clench. Mcconnell pressed her lips together, feeling her face get hot, just as a gust of cold air blew through her bathroom, bringing with it a sprinkle of snow that made both of them shiver.

“Come on. Preston found some mint for you.”

“No way!” she exclaimed as Deacon steered her out of the bathroom and through the front door.

“Totally way.”

The mint tea did not go down as smoothly as she would have liked, only because the shot of bourbon she put in it burned her throat. Though, the weight off her shoulders and the warmth spreading to her fingers and toes were pleasant and made it all worth it. In her kitchen, she and Deacon sat beside each other at her countertop that had, oddly enough, survived nuclear armageddon. A peaceful hush spread across Sanctuary Hills and with it a powder of snow and frigid air. Steam whirled above the honey-colored surface of her tea as Teddy pursed her lips and blew.

Beside her, Deacon sipped at his own homemade beer that tasted like sweaty boots to everyone except him. She didn’t know why, but her face flushed when she watched his muscles work as he gulped. No, that’s a lie, she thought. She did know why. It was as obvious as the way her heart hammered in her chest every time he smiled, every time her ears turned pink when he brushed up against her, whenever she snorted a little too much at his jokes. Every part of her body said what she could not say out loud – she loved Deacon.

“Hey,” she said after a few gulps of her spiked tea.

He faced her, eyebrows raised. “Hm?”

“I… What you did for me. You know… That was… I’ll never forget that. You know, once I found Shaun, I thought… I lost my son. I blew up his home. Now what? What was left for me to do? But saving that kid, even if Dez lost her shit over it, that was the best feeling I had in a long time. And I want to do it again. I never… I never want to stop doing it. Saving people. I don’t care who it is. Synth, human, ghoul, whatever, if they need help, I want to be that person. I hate the scar. I hate it. But I’m still here, and I can keep doing what I do. And…” She sighed, picking at the chipped paint of her cracked coffee mug with her thumb nail. There was a stillness between them she couldn’t mistake. When she glanced up at him, she noticed he had no expression at all. Just a blank face and whatever was behind his sunglasses, but Teddy braved the silence. “And I just want to thank you. For saving my life. So thank you, Deacon. Thank you… And, look, this might be the alcohol talking. I lied I put two shots of bourbon. But I would really, _really_ like to kiss you right now.”

At that, Deacon smiled, almost chuckling, and pulled off his sunglasses, and if that wasn’t an invitation, Teddy didn’t know what was.

She set her mug down with shaking hands, scooted herself off her stool, curled her fingers around his palm, and leaned. His lips were chapped and tasted just like his homemade beer, but still her heart fluttered and her knees wobbled under her weight. She cupped his cheeks and found the rough stubble against her palms pleasant and charming. When he dug his fingers in her dark hair and wrapped an arm around her waist, Teddy could not help but smile into the kiss, ignoring the sharp pain of her healing scars. This was perfect.

With one last kiss, she finally pulled away to lean her forehead against his. A laugh bubbled up her throat, but it came out as a sigh. Either way, she was happy and content. “Thank you, Deacon.”

“Any time, Teddy.”


End file.
